Archive for the ‘Nature’ Category

Orphan sisters chase monsters of urban legend in Bloemfontein. At a busy taxi rank, a woman kills a man with her shoe. A genomicist is accused of playing God when she creates a fatherless child.

Intruders is a collection that explores how it feels not to belong. These are stories of unremarkable people thrust into extraordinary situations by events beyond their control.

With a unique and memorable touch, Mohale Mashigo explores the everyday ills we live with and wrestle constantly, all the while allowing hidden energies to emerge and play out their unforeseen consequences.

Intruders is speculative fiction at its best.

Mohale Mashigo is the author of the widely acclaimed and best-selling novel, The Yearning, which won the University of Johannesburg 2016 Debut Prize for South African Writing in English, as well as of Beyond the River, a young adult adaptation of the movie of the same name. She is also an award-winning singer, songwriter and comic book writer for the Kwezi series.

Mohale recently discussed her foray into short story writing with Africa Melane on Cape Talk. Listen to their convo here!

Françoise never expected to find herself responsible for a herd of elephants with a troubled past.

A chic Parisienne, her life changed forever when she fell in love with South African conservationist Lawrence Anthony. Together they founded a game reserve but after Lawrence’s death, Françoise faced the daunting responsibility of running Thula Thula without him. Poachers attacked their rhinos, their security team wouldn’t take orders from a woman and the authorities were threatening to cull their beloved elephant family. On top of that, the herd’s feisty new matriarch Frankie didn’t like her.

In this heart-warming and moving book, Françoise describes how she fought to protect the herd and to make her dream of building a wildlife rescue centre a reality. She found herself caring for a lost baby elephant who turned up at her house, and offering refuge to traumatized orphaned rhinos, and a hippo called Charlie who was scared of water. As she learned to trust herself, she discovered she’d had Frankie wrong all along . . .

Filled with extraordinary animals and the humans who dedicate their lives to saving them, An Elephant in My Kitchen is a captivating and gripping read.

Palaeoscientist Lee Berger wowed the world in 2015, when he unveiled possible human ancestor Homo naledi and a treasure trove of skeletons in the Dinaledi Cave, in the Cradle of Humankind in Gauteng. Berger, a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and National Geographic explorer-in-residence, was also responsible for the discovery of Australopithecus sediba in 2008 – another hominin.

While there has been controversy about the Homo naledi find – from the scientific community, with question marks over the researchers’ conclusions, and from South African society at large, where the announcement sparked a race row – there is no doubt Berger has remarkable talent. He makes finding hominin fossils, some of the most rare and precious artefacts on Earth, look easy.

Xolani Gwala recently called on Kevin Richardson, animal behaviourist and co-author of Part of the Pride, to give his opinion on the recent lion attack at the Lion Park near Lanseria on Talk Radio 702.

In the podcast, Richardson reminds listeners that lions are wild animals that people should be wary of.

Gwala asks Richardson if he thinks videos of “Lion Whisperers” like himself encourage dangerous animals. Richardson responds by saying that there are “experts in every field,” and ordinary people should not try to handle lions because they saw a professional do it anymore than they would attempt heart surgery after seeing a trained surgeon at work.

In Are Trout South African? Brown discusses notions of identity and belonging, using the history of trout in South Africa as a way of exploring these issues.

Powered by the British public’s unstoppable enthusiasm for toilet humour, the enticingly-titled How to Poo on a Date has carried off this year’s Diagram prize for the oddest book title of the year.

With previous winners of the award including How to Shit in the Woods, American Bottom Archaeology and Cooking with Poo – which innocently drew its name from author Saiyuud Diwong’s nickname, “Poo”, Thai for crab – the prize is beginning to show a dangerous trend. “Diagram devotees have spoken, and spoken in no uncertain terms: poo wins prizes,” said prize administrator Tom Tivnan, also highlighting the shortlisted title The Origin of Feces, which came in a narrow second to How to Poo on a Date in this year’s public vote.

Flyfishing Magazine has named Duncan Brown’s Are Trout South African? their book of the year. Ed Herbst writes that “it comes at the ideal time to assist debate over the controversial new new NEM:BA [National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act] legislation.”

Herbst writes that he was conflicted about including Brown’s book as he is featured in one of the chapters, but he says that several of his friends read the entire book in one sitting, so he is assured that it’s an enjoyable read.

It is said that there have been more books written about flyfishing than any other outdoor pastime. Each year seems to add to the tally and the available range has been increased by DVDs and e-books. They make ideal Christmas presents so, with the help of Craig Thom of StreamX/Netbooks, I have drawn up the following list of what we regard as the best books and DVDs which have reached the market in the past year.

Without a doubt the book of the year is Are Trout South African? (Pan Macmillan) by Duncan Brown. Peter Brigg reviewed it in the October/November issue of this magazine, and if you Google the title and Neels Blom you will see his review in Business Day. The book contains a chapter about me, so I am somewhat conflicted in mentioning it, but several of my friends read it cover to cover in a single session, so it obviously is enjoyable. Furthermore, it comes at the ideal time to assist debate over the controversial new NEM:BA legislation.

The Main Road in Kalk Bay, which is finally open to two-way traffic after some years of roadworks, was awash just hours before the launch of Duncan Brown’s fascinating new book, Are Trout South African?: Stories of Fish, People and Places. Tim Butcher, a Kalk Bay resident and author of Blood River, was there to chat to the author. He suggested that the flooding was a ploy by Kalk Bay Books’ new owner, Audrey Rademeyer, to lend veracity to the event’s theme of fishing.

Butcher’s a self-proclaimed foreigner, “A Brit,” he says. “How long does something have to be in South Africa to be South African? Trout are not indigenous. They were introduced to South Africa in the late nineteenth century, and their continued existence in the country’s rivers has been heatedly debated by local authorities.”

Brown’s book asks whether trout are special above other fish. They are some of the less invasive and threatening of introduced species. He said carp are not good for water quality, making the water turgid. They are not attractive to bodies of water. “The ferocity of the debate pivots around elitism, and colonialism,” said Brown.

Butcher said, “This is a subtle book about fishing, place, anthropology. It makes one ask what does it mean to think about place in the complex region that is South Africa.” Norman Maclean’s famous novella, A River Runs Through It, ends with the last line, “I am haunted by waters”. Are Trout South African? explores how human identities are interposed with the natural environments and species they support, particularly as regards the waterways they frequent.

Brown’s audience included avid flyfishermen, fellow academics from UWC, readers and book lovers. They were treated to a fascinating discussion on how the various types of trout got here, how some died out and some made it. “There is a subtle theme of snobbery,” said Butcher. “Brits all boil everything down to class. Trout fishing was for the upper classes. All other fishing in the UK is known as ‘coarse’ fishing, as if it’s somehow something vulgar.”

Brown talked about the state sanction up until the mid-80s which protected trout. “Conservation bodies saw it as their business not to protect alien species, but to protect indigenous fish. Alienness is associated with undesirability,” he said. “How do we think about the value we place on indigeneity without going back to the hoary notions of origin?”

He said that there are purists who say that dingoes are not indigenous to Australia because they have only been there for 5000 years. “How do we look at that in a South African context? Who, apart from the Khoi are indigneous from that perspective? How far back do you go? It’s an arbitrary decision and legislation is introduced on the back of an assumption that is only a model. What does it mean if something is introduced by the human hand? It can’t be indigenous, say the biologists.”

Brown loves fishing. For him it is about solitude and quiet company rather than the esoteric technical issues about how to tie a fly. “It’s about an immersion in a world that requires behaviour of a different fashion,” he said. “You have to alter the way you read, noticing the water and the wind. Fishing is a significant and humbling activity, not just because of my astonishing lack of success.” Fishing offered him something around which significant relationships had been formed, in particular with his father. As he lay dying, he insisted that his son release a four-pound trout from the end of the hospital bed. Soon after his passing, Brown took the rods he had inherited from his father and, much to his surprise, he caught a fabulous four-pounder. This was just the sort of synchronicity that flyfishing attracts, suggested Buthcher.

Brown said that writing the book had been an intense experience. “This was the first book I tried to write which I hope will be accessible, not just to academics. It has a lot of self-revelation, and, I hope, a coherent argument with just the right amount of cartilage.” His previous books had too much cartilage, he mused. “They were too bony!”

He recalled the advice of Isabel Hofmeyr who suggested that academics should get up from their desk to do their research. He mused, “Did she mean they should go fishing?”